Ready-made Hungarian goulash

Stacey was hoping for something like this

His curly blonde hair, adorable with its corkscrew curls, flew out at various directions. His lips formed into a pout as he commented that the abundant packets of frozen food, lying in vast containers, looked 'yucky'. But before he could embark on a full criticism of Aldi's wares, his father glanced at me apologetically before dragging him across the store to the chocolate section, where his face suddenly brightened considerably.

Perhaps I should have taken his advice and moved along. Instead, I became intrigued by a set of ready meals containing Aldi's 'Around the World' range. A series of meals 'sourced fresh from around the globe' (or mass-produced in a nearby grimy English factory, rather), the brightly coloured cartons attempted to attract my custom with exotic names and elaborate descriptions. We all know that the tantalising image on the front of a ready meal will inevitably be the product of Photoshop, so I wasn't swayed yet. But among the orthodox offerings of Vietnamese chicken curry and Indonesian noodles, strangely enough, I found ready-made Hungarian goulash. My curiosity got the better of me - after all, warm, bubbling beef stew with dumplings ready in less than 8 minutes and costing less than £2?

Walking through the supermarket aisles before, I'd encountered the usual, orthodox offerings of pasta carbonara, chicken korma and Thai green curry. Hungarian goulash, however, was something of a rarity. I'd tasted goulash before and missed the flavour of delicately seasoned dumplings and the juicy pieces of meat, resting in a flavoursome stew. Picking up the carton, I asked the fatal question: what could go wrong?

Having returned home I 'cooked' (if you can call it that) the goulash in the microwave, peeled back the film and sensed the waves of tender beef, wine and paprika wafting towards me. So far, so good. I then took a bite of the dish and instantly regretted my decision, cursing my naivety as I attempted to stomach the gloopy substance.

The dumplings (all two of them) had all the consistency of play-doh, causing me to inadvertently adopt the expression of a munching cow as I worked my way through. The stew was no better in taste. Instead, I was confronted with an overwhelming flavour of wine and nothing else. I'm not against alcohol-food combinations by any means, but it would appear that my stew contained a whole bottle of wine, rather than a few careful drops. I became increasingly worried as I got to the beef, partly because it was disguised in the dark brown slime of the stew and had the ambiguous consistency and taste of chicken or pork. Maybe that's what the alcohol was there for, come to think of it. There were some vegetables in there too, I think, although they were so few and far between I'm struggling to remember.

A glance at the ingredients list yielded several uncomfortable truths. Needless to say, real Hungarian goulash probably doesn't have ingredients ending in '-phosphate', nor do the dumplings warrant their own intricate and sinister recipe at the back of the carton. In hindsight, I should have realised that no matter how exotic sounding a ready meal is, you will probably never hear anyone waxing lyrical about a ready-made Indonesian nasi goreng from ASDA.

I was filled with even greater regret when realising that I could have probably cooked a tasty Hungarian goulash myself for not much more. That said, by this time, all I felt like doing was scarfing down some not very exotic chocolate digestives to eliminate the lingering taste.

I say I've learnt my lesson, and that I'll never loiter in the frozen food aisles again. But I'm sure come another trip to the supermarket, curiosity will get the better of me one more time. After all, I did see some ready-made moussaka in Morrisons the other day...

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